Prof. T. P. Singh

All of observed matter is made of four different types of elementary particles. These are the electron, up quark, down quark, and the neutrino. Their electric charges come in simple ratios: 1, 2/3, 1/3, 0, respectively. Also, every one of these particles belongs to a family of three generations, with all three particles in a family having the same electric charge. However, their mass ratios appear strange and arbitrary. For instance, the muon is 207 times heavier than the electron; and the top quark is 340,000 times heavier than the electron. How are we to understand the origin of these peculiar mass ratios? It turns out that the answer lies in addressing a foundational problem of quantum theory, while employing a number system known as the octonions. In so doing we arrive at a falsifiable unified theory of forces, and consequently derive simple fractional mass ratios for the charged elementary particles. These fractions reproduce the observed mass ratios to percent-level accuracy.